mage questions.

Scghost

Me again, I'm trying to decide if I want to keep leveling my mage or my DK melee guy.
so I guess my first question is, is there a way to control my summons? its pretty annoying when they keep attacking the mobs I'm trying to CC : /.
and lastly, how viable are mages for melee builds? don't know if they have a decent healing ability to depend on without a staff.

Egdod

They will attack the first thing you attack, so CC the others

Scghost

yes, but the CC cast takes so long.. I could kill one in the time it takes to cast that...

Dustile

The staff alone wont cut the mustard compared to a Templar with a staff. It may be viable but no where near preferable.

Lazarus_Long

I find the Dark Magic skills handy for mass CC and healing. On my sorcerer my main weapon is the restoration staff because of the 10% magicka restored after a heavy hit. That keeps my DPS high by allowing more spells to be cast in long fights.

As far as mages not being good healers, that depends on your play style and the size of your magicka pool. Since the restoration staff heals are heal-over-time it's best to use them before you are about to die. The protection skills are just plain awesome IMHO. They can save a player by adding to their armor, health, and/or spell resistance while giving the HoT skills time to work.

nidriks

@scghost You can't control the pets, but they do have their uses. For solo PvE they're very handy and the little dragon guy will take the attention of a mob. The winged pet can be upgraded to have a regen magicka ability, though I don't know how much of a noticeable effect it's had in the groups where I've used it. It can also be upgraded to heal you. In hindsight I wish I'd gone for that.

Whether the pets will have any real use in late game group play is something I'm not too sure of. I suspect not. They're really too much of a hassle with what they attack. They attack anything that you attack and anything that attacks you and that could be dangerous. That could be worrying if you need to control mobs.

I haven't reached the endgame yet, though. I don't know if there are sorcerors out there finding any use for the pets.

Your best bet when soloing is to let the pets do their thing. Don't CC unless the mob is running at you directly. Let the pets handle what they attacked first. I played mostly an ice build for the first 20 levels, but I've since switched over to fire and I just burn mobs down as fast as possible, rather than freezing them.

Regarding a melee build sorceror; well I don't see why not. If you look down the Daedric skill tree there are damage shields and armour buffs that would suit melee well. I've actually read that a sorceror tank is a viable prospect. I'm not much of a tank, though, so I haven't tried it.

One place where pets are certainly a no-no is AvA. You need to be sneaky and pets don't sneak. They show you up light a lighthouse.

Hawke

Pets cannot be controlled as stated. But pets can be of use in AvA. You just wont be sneaking around like some thief in the night who is frightened of a stand up fight.

Any class can make an outstanding healer.

Once again as I have stated, classes are there to add flavor. You only have 6 abilities you can use at one time... and eventually you might never use a class ability.

I would love to remove most of my class abilities, like the shard, since I never use it anymore. But I have it there to get xp for that skill line.

I dont use pets, at all. Waste of my time (just my opinion). But Daedric Curse IS a great use of my time, especially cooking it for 3 seconds. Some nice damage comes out of that.

And dont get too bogged down with CC in PvE. Most mobs die after you hit them 3 times anyways. My general attack sequence is Curse, Fury, Strong Attack with weapon and most of the time that mob is dead.

Since I got Vamped, it is more like Curse, Drain and that target is dead. These are even conned or +2 con mobs. I might have to do a light attack to finish them off.

Anyhow, you can play like you want, but until you get to your late 20s or maybe even 40s, you won't have the same freedom and selection of skills until then.